Of One Mind

Hear the word of the Lord.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

This is the word of the Lord.

Church, let's pray over the word.

Father, as we we dive into your word here, Father, we're just so anxious to hear what you have for us today.

We're so thankful for Brother Dylan for bringing us your word today.

Father, we just pray that uh we're listening and learning from your word today.

Father, we pray that uh we learn more about what you've called us to do here.

Uh Father, we're just so thankful for your your teaching.

So thankful for Paul and the words he left for us.

Uh Father, just show us what you have for us and show us how to be more like Jesus.

Father, we're listening and we're learning and we're we're eager to hear from you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Be seated.

You're you know what to do.

Good morning.

I'm Dylan, I'm one of the pastors here.

I want to set this on the floor.

Be uh as we have uh just read, we are in uh Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 5 today.

Philippians 2:1–5

If you want to use the Pew Bibles, even though they're not in the pew, it's page uh 921.

Uh have you ever uh had one of those days where just everything went your way?

Maybe it's a couple days in a row, but even if just it's amazing what one day of everything coming up aces will do for your attitude.

You wake up, you've slept all night, you feel great.

You walk out the door, and after the the the weather we've had, fall is in the air.

And then what that does for lifting your spirits, the results that you've been nervously waiting for came back, they're good.

You're relieved, you're excited.

It's green lights all the way to work.

You go to buy your lunch, the cashier says, You're the hundredth customer, and your lunch is free.

Right.

It's just like it just never, it just you can't believe it.

And at the end of this day, you're very excited because you have plans with your friends who you haven't seen in a while.

Life is busy, it's hard to get together, but you finally, all of you, got the same night off, and you're gonna go out to eat at your favorite restaurant.

What a thrill! I love that.

That's a I love seeing old friends over food that I really enjoy.

Life's great pleasure.

You've had a wonderful day, you clock out, you get in your car, you see a text, hey, bad news.

We none of us want to go to that restaurant.

We're going over here, meet us there.

In that moment, no big deal.

I'm excited to go see my friends, right?

Mostly.

I would hope that that's your response.

If you've had a wonderful day and you just have to eat somewhere else, probably though, your response is man, that's a bummer, but no big deal.

I'm gonna meet you over there.

I'm still excited.

Same day, flip at 180.

You slept terribly.

You overslept.

Now you're late.

You've been late three times and you've got your points, and the boss is gonna talk to you.

The results came back, and maybe they're not bad, but the doctor hasn't said you're cleared.

You didn't catch a single green light, you got cut off four times.

Your lunch, you got charged twice for it, and it got stuck in the vending machine and just frustrated.

And then that same text comes through scorched earth.

I want to eat where I want to eat, right?

What's the difference there?

Just circumstances, circum significantly different ones.

But how we respond to the preferences of others, if it's just in our flesh, is entirely dependent on the circumstances that happened to us throughout the day.

We are just a slave to what has happened to us throughout the day when we are living in the flesh and saying, I can be agreeable or reasonable or patient or humble insofar as I feel good about what's going on in my life.

But how frequently, frankly, do we have those everything went well days?

Not that often.

Not that often.

There's always something.

If if our sense of peaceableness and reasonableness is dependent just on our external worldly circumstances, we are in trouble.

Because in our flesh, we will ebb and flow with the winds of those circumstances, pursuing our comfort and equilibrium to satisfy our interests.

It's encouraged culturally.

It's encouraged in our flesh.

I want comfort, whatever that may mean for you, and uh it's it's there's great variance in that.

I want comfort, and when comfort is disturbed, my circumstances are incorrect, and I'm cranky, and I'm impatient, and I'm proud rather than humble, and I'm unreasonable rather than reasonable.

And we take that observation of human nature and multiply it out amongst our church family.

That's an individual, that's one of us is capable of being incredibly unreasonable when our circumstances aren't what we would hope they are, and then multiply that times everyone who has covenanted to this church body who is called to come together and say we rally around a common faith and a common belief and a common mission that requires a lot of choices and preferences.

And we bring ourselves and our interest into those things, a collection of individuals having all kinds of experiences throughout the week.

We gather here on Sunday, under, again, just an immeasurable set of different circumstances, and all of us are called to be unified, loving, patient, long-suffering with one another.

And our uh if our unity is dependent on our circumstances, we are in trouble.

If circumstances or individual personalities or being alike, or whatever else you want to put in there is the source of our unity, we will never, ever, ever, ever make it.

Or we'll have glimpses of it when everyone's feeling good about what's going on, but those will be small, spaced-out peaks in between great valleys.

Praise God that his word informs us that that is not the case, that our our unity lies outside of us in Christ, that our ability to be unified is given to us by the Spirit, and that despite what we may think, our circumstances are all made equal by the Father.

Because at the end of the day, red lights or green lights, good sleep or not, rays or demotion, new job, lost a job, our circumstances under the Lord are all the same and all equal.

We are loved, redeemed, adopted, saved, reconciled unto the God of the universe by God Himself.

Our eternal circumstances are unchanging, and those are the source of our unity and our humility and our patience with one another, and an ability to take a room full of people that, although we may all still live in the same area, that's about the only common denominator.

But we are unified under Christ, and according to Scripture, it is possible, not just uh not a maybe, it is uh divinely possible through the mind of Christ to be unified as a church.

We come with optimism and hope because scripture tells us this.

We are knit together in community as the bride of Christ, called the church.

And in Philippians 2, Paul gives us a beautiful picture of the kind of unity that Christ enables.

He motivates it in us, and he sustains it.

That unity, Paul says, must be expressed among the church to protect it from division.

Last week in chapter one, Paul warns and instructs about disunifying threats from the outside.

But often in historical and cultural moments where the church is not at under threat, our church right now, in this moment, in this culture, on this point in the timeline, is not under significant threats.

There's ideological threats, there's ideological persecution against the American church, but we we aren't living under the persecution of the Roman Empire in the first century, where you could be beheaded or thrown into the Colosseum and pulled apart by lions for our faith.

We need to make sure we're grading levels of persecution here.

We are safe and secure.

And I think at times like this, the greatest threat to the unity of the church comes from within.

We don't have an exterior danger to rally around.

And so if we are not guarded and unified around Christ, the divisions will come from within.

And so we don't rely on agreeing on everything.

And we don't rely on everyone agreeing on the color of the LED white light wall back here during the second song.

And we don't rely on how good or bad our week was or any other circumstance.

We rely on Jesus.

We rely on Jesus.

That is the most Sunday school answer.

And and and there is no greater one.

Let me parse that a bit because there's more to it.

There's not more than Jesus, but there's more to it than just Jesus as a singular thought here.

Let's look together what Paul has to say about it.

In verse one, he writes so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, we'll stop here.

Parents, have you ever said this to your kids, or maybe you remember your parents saying it to you?

You two, or you three, or however many kids you have, get along.

Just, just, please, please get along.

You can tell what phase we're in right now.

Please get along.

Does that work for y'all?

Same.

Same.

If it works at all, I have to put so many more words to it.

Get along because.

We have to stop them, say, just a minute, look at me and listen to me.

Let me explain to you why the motivation for getting along.

You are siblings.

You love one another.

We want you to love each other like Jesus loves you.

We give reasons.

We remind our kids the motivation for their unity.

And Paul seems to be doing the same thing here in verse one because in several verses down, which we'll look about in here in a moment, he says, be of one mind, one love, and humility.

Count others as more significant than yourself.

He gives us action and difficult act.

We as humans, we read that and go, that is difficult.

So he starts with, here's why.

Here's why I want you to get along in Christ.

And here's the motivators.

Be of the same mind, be unified, get along because of Jesus.

And the ESV, which I'm preaching from this morning, that's what all the Pew Bibles are, and in many other translations, the structure of the thought is a little bit different of how we might express it today.

So if there, right, we read, so if there is any encouragement, and so if there is love and on and on, can maybe give this sense of if it happens to be true.

But that's not Paul's meaning here.

It's rhetorical.

It means, in the sense, rather, because there is encouragement in Christ.

If is rhetorical, it is a meaning of communication, which Paul means, of course there is.

We have encouragement, we have love, we have participation with the spirit, affection, and sympathy.

And so we take a moment to consider a few ways that we can engage in all of these.

First, he says there's encouragement in Jesus.

What is that encouragement?

Just reflect for a moment briefly on if you just start the Rolodex of what Jesus has done and secured and accomplished for you.

Just what the the benefits package of Christianity.

It's a terrible analogy, but just what is on offer to us in terms of eternal promises.

And then there is the here and now says, Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

That's eventually and it's now.

We have a current benefit of living under the love of Jesus, who invites us, who is gentle and lowly.

He rescued us from our sin and hell.

He loves us.

The God of the universe, sinless and perfect, loves me and you and everyone in this room.

What an encouragement.

Is it not encouraging to be known to know the love of another?

I pray that you've experienced the love of someone else.

What an encouragement in your life that that is.

He intercedes for us with the Father.

He secured our adoption, and he's gonna share his inheritance with us.

Who does that?

We have encouragement in Christ.

Life is hard, suffering is assured.

Difficulties are all around us, and our temporal, day-to-day circumstances are unpredictable.

The best day of your life can be immediately followed by the worst.

But our eternal status, the only circumstance that is unchanging and unending is this that through Christ, our names are written in the book of life, and they will not be blotted out if we are found in Christ Jesus.

Eternal, unchanging circumstances.

If Paul says, it almost makes it sound uh uh quaint, if there is any encouragement in Christ.

That that list is not even exhaustive, what I was just able to share here.

It's not to suggest that difficulties and sufferings should be minimized or ignored or treated as no big deal.

Jesus deals with that too, and we'll discuss it in a moment, affection and sympathy.

But rather, we are called as the body of Christ towards one mind, unity by the encouragement we find in Christ and what he has done for us.

We have comfort and love from Jesus.

We have this encouragement.

I Jesus, I know what you have secured for me.

And we have comfort from love.

We can be unified around that.

The triune God of the universe, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, loves you.

Loves you.

Sit in that just a moment.

Also because he loves us, Scripture says he has enabled us to love him.

In that wild.

God delights in loving us and us loving him.

In that wild.

It brings him glory and honor to love him and to love each other sacrificially and unselfishly with the mind of Christ.

And from that love springs all sorts of things, not least of which, in this case, is comfort in our affliction and in our challenges and our difficulties.

Peace in this moment, even.

I pray that everyone in this room has some sense of familiarity with this idea that love is comforting.

And the love of the Father through the Son is divinely so.

I think about um just as a an object lesson um relating here, occasionally, not all the time, but occasionally, I'll go back at like 10 PM and stick my head in the kids' rooms.

Norclair is always out.

Uh ouse or sometimes, not frequently, but sometimes is staring at the ceiling, and I can see just steam coming out of his ears.

Just thinking.

And to be fair, sometimes I go, what are you thinking about?

And sometimes the answer is, I had a tough day.

I'm worried about tomorrow, whatever it is.

It's but he's seven, so often it's what you think about dinosaurs, what whatever it may be.

His mind is racing though, and he can't fall asleep.

Uh and and randomly, I was listening to a podcast some one time and just out of the corner of my ear heard someone suggest as a father, hey, next time you hug your kids, let them let go first.

Uh and and so I did that with Al once, and here's what happened.

I happen to notice he couldn't sleep.

His mind's racing, he's concerned.

He's thinking about his circumstances.

And I came in the room and said, Hey, you go, you okay?

Said, yeah.

Can you sleep?

No.

He said, Do you want to hug?

He said, okay.

He said, okay.

Uh and and I sat down on the bed and he sat up and he hugged me.

Uh and then he went to, and I just I let him and we hug for probably five minutes.

And I felt his his body untense and his breathing slow and regulates, and he fell asleep, leaning on my chest, hugging me.

But what comfort in love.

What comfort in love.

I'm not suggesting that that what I do with my son is how the father, the hey, father, do it.

I have a good idea for you, God, do this thing.

But just as so we can wrap our hands and get a hold of, there, there is comfort in love.

Sometimes indescribably intangible comfort that just comes from someone that you know has control over.

As far as Al knows, I control his future.

And so just the nearness to me uh brought peace to his mind.

It didn't change his circumstances.

The test was still tomorrow.

Dinosaurs were still a mystery to him.

The circumstances are the same.

But but in a moment, he was able to lean into the comfort that was the love that I expressed through a hug.

What a beautiful picture we have then to extrapolate that out to the God of the universe.

Jesus says, Come to me intimately.

I want to love you and care for you.

There is comfort and love from Jesus.

And so we come in on a Sunday morning, and the circumstances of a week are garbage.

But we can come in here humbly and patiently and joyfully, thinking of others first, because we have the comfort of love that comes from the Father and the Son and the Spirit.

We are empowered under these tasks by the Spirit.

This says we participate.

Paul gives us the next motivator.

We we are to be of one mind as a church body because there is participation in the spirit.

We are encouraged and we are loved and we get to participate.

We get to be a part of this.

We are indwelled by the triune God Himself and the person of the Spirit.

When we receive Christ as your Lord and Savior through belief and repentance and faith, you are indwelled by the Spirit, says Scripture.

That happens at an individual level.

Each Christian in this room carries the Holy Spirit with them in participation.

And that is true at the collective level.

So often, especially as a result of our cultural influences in this moment in time, we see church as a building with a staff and a set of programs and the attendees, you're you're individual Christians, and you're choosing where to place your place your social uh membership within a myriad of options.

And certainly that is part of the practical ways in which that expresses choosing a church, but it misses the scriptural picture.

We are the church.

We are saved individually unto each other.

We are saved individually.

We are individually responsible for our sins.

But when Christ bids us and calls us unto salvation, he saves us unto the body while we wait for Jesus.

This is inherently not individualistic.

And so we participate in the Spirit individually, but together in our unity, in our humility, and thinking of each other as more significant than ourselves.

The Spirit guides us in this purpose.

Just from John 16, he he guides us concerning sin and righteousness.

That's in our salvation.

But there's also a sense of ongoing.

I need to go apologize to my brother or sister because of the thing I did or did not do.

I need to guard the unity through being humble and counting someone else as more important.

He is our helper, he is our counselor, and at the core of the spirit's work is this in John 16, 14, Jesus says, He, the Spirit, will glorify me, Jesus, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The Spirit will glorify the Son, and the Son whose mind we have that unifies us as a body of believers.

As we participate in the Spirit, we can be assured that He will guide us into the things of Christ, including unity.

That's not all.

We're also motivated towards unity, towards unselfish living, towards one another, towards thinking more highly of the person next to you, because in Christ we have been given affection and sympathy.

Commentators speak of this in terms of Jesus' tenderness towards us.

I personally, I don't know about you, but I can speak for me.

I have a hard time accepting Jesus as tender and gentle with me.

I for whatever reason, whatever combination of my background and mental tendencies and personality, I'm good at receiving wrathful God.

I have a difficulty accepting affectionate, gentle, lowly Jesus.

But it is right in front of us through all of Scripture.

We have encouragement, we have love, we have participation, and we have his affection and his sympathy.

He invites us into embrace.

He tends to our hurts.

He understands our hurts even more fully than we can.

He knows the depths of the pain and the cause and the solution.

Turn to me.

The wounds from others, the wounds we inflict on ourselves, they are attended to by the great physician himself.

How beautiful.

Affectionately and with sympathy.

In just a moment, we'll read of Paul's instructions to be of one mind and to humble ourselves towards one another.

And frankly, that difficult that task is difficult if we are drawing from who we are.

If it is, hey, who you are by nature, but who you are in your flesh and your natural tendencies and reactions be unified.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

But thankfully, we do not seek unity on the basis of who we are, but or or what our circumstances are.

But rather, unity is motivated because Jesus is our encouragement, our comfort and love, our participation in the Spirit.

And he looks upon us with affection and sympathy.

So all that taken together, we are well suited to move into what Paul has now instructed us to do, which is a lofty goal and a difficult one for humans.

And verse two, he says, Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Let me say this.

That's empirical data.

Since I've been here, we are an elder-led congregationally ruled Baptist church, meaning we as covenanted members all have a vote on matters spelled out in the bylaws, budget and staffing and direction and all manner of things.

I have not genuinely, I haven't seen a vote under 95% on anything.

Usually, most often, it's 98 to 100% voting.

That's wild statistically.

Most pastors are thrilled with high 80s to low 90s.

That is the statistic, that is the industry standard for a healthy unified church.

High 80s to low 90s, we are regularly kissing high 90s to unanimous.

Statistically, this church is beautifully, beautifully unified.

And yet it is still difficult.

And it takes us being on guard all the time to do this, be of the same mind, have the same love, be in full accord.

Unified under the banner of Jesus, unified as brothers and sisters, adopted into the same family, promised the same inheritance, and saved by the same grace.

Paul wrote that it would complete his joy to see that kind of unity among the Philippian church.

To see the family of Christ at the church of Philippi living in the motivation of Jesus' encouragement, love, affection, sympathy.

To see them unified, Paul says, would be the source of his completed joy.

I as just as a pastor, I can understand Paul's heart here.

It is a joy as one of the shepherds here to see expressions of unity.

Nothing puts more wind in our sails.

I think I probably could speak for Robert and Michael.

Usually we cliche, I can only I will speak for them and say, the wind in our sails is unity amongst the body of Christ at Heartland Church.

I get it.

The same mind, the same love and full accord and of one mind.

He he takes off on this list of four repetitions of unity, maybe for emphasis, certainly covering all the corners and the escape routes.

Says, have the same mentality.

Do it in line, be in be in full accord, be harmonious in agreement.

This is the imperative of the passage.

Do this, the central push of the thought.

Be unified.

Be really, really unified.

Not just in word, but in action and in mind and in love.

So he gets at more than a surface-level acquiescence to the circumstances.

We show the world that through our unity, your preferences are often sacrificed.

In obedient love for those around you, you do not insist on your own preferences.

And in that way, through our unity as the body of Christ, we exalt and proclaim the work of Christ, who set aside his preference in the garden and marched to the cross.

If you'll remember, he says, Lord, is there any other way?

But but regardless, may your will be done.

Jesus sets the example for what he then asks us to do.

He set aside his esteem and his throne, and he stepped down from heaven to come get us.

And he says, Do uh do the same for one another.

Brothers and sisters, unity is not a nicety, it is gospel proclamation.

Unity is not, we don't want anyone stepping out of line.

Unity is an expression of who Jesus is and what he has done for us, and it is a proclamation of that gospel to the watching world.

But how?

How do we do it?

We now know why we should want to do this, but but how?

So we look at verses three and four.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

I I have written in my manuscript.

Uh-oh.

That's tough.

It's tough.

It's hard to, I'll be frank, it's hard.

I have to battle myself walking in my door of my house with the three people I prefer the most, my wife and kids.

And with them, I have to battle setting myself down.

And I don't do it well or frequently, but it's still with the people that I think of and my mind is on the most, this is difficult.

And then we and then the the we read in scripture that we're expected to have this mentality amongst all of the church family.

It's easy to desire unity in your church.

It's almost easy to get motivated and spun up in a fever to go after it because it sounds nice.

And then we read what it will take.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.

If you are not sure if you are doing things out of selfish ambition or conceit, among many metrics, one you might ask yourself, is my idea of how this thing should be the only possible good or right idea?

If uh am I doing anything from selfish ambition or conceit?

And if my answer is there's no possible way, I'm so humble, red flag, though the list can go on and on, right?

Ask someone around you do I do I pursue my own interests primarily and at the expense of yours?

Be ready for the answer.

Because we're just prone to it.

It is why so frequently throughout scripture that pride and humility and sacrificial love are spoken to, because it is not how we will tend to live our lives.

Don't be selfishly ambitious and conceited.

Instead, in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others.

Paul's antidote for selfishness is to think of other people.

It's not complicated.

Quiet room.

Paul's antidote for selfishness is to think of other people and to consider them, not just to think of them, but to consider them more important than you.

Try that as an exercise this week.

When you are currently this week, at some point, make a note.

Go, the next time I feel frustrated because my preference wasn't met, and it happens so much.

If you start to pay attention, you get frustrated so much when your preference isn't met.

I'll drive away from a drive-thru and go, they forgot my straw and be really right.

Silly things, silly things will set us into our selfish, arrogant bribes.

The next time that happens, think of someone else and consider that individual who you think screwed up.

They are more important than you.

I've done it a couple of times this week.

It's uncomfortable.

And it stops me cold in those tracks.

You may look out for your own interests.

It says, Don't just look out for yours, but you may look out for yours.

But it might mean that your interests aren't obsessively guarded by you because you're too busy looking out for someone else.

If we are primarily concerned with those who are more significant than us, and according to Paul, that's everyone.

And if we are saying, okay, I gotta take care of my interests, but but I also need to prioritize the interests of my brothers and sisters and of my church family, what you will see happen is your concern for yourself starts to wane.

Now, but chances are to some degree or another, we we we all walked in, every one of us this morning, hoping our interests will be met.

It's probably that was probably our primary thought.

Even if it wasn't you you weren't aware of that, was the thought process.

You came in hoping we would sing a particular song, or that your seat was still open when you got here because you were running a little late.

You're hoping for Robert, you got me.

And on and on and on.

And yet Paul says, Count others more significant than yourself.

Look to look to other people's interests first.

You can look to your own.

I have songs that I prefer over others.

I'm never gonna tell you which ones they are.

I I have uh uh of the preachers uh a preference, it's not me.

We but but in all of it, we we are looking to others first.

Uh let me ask you to do something.

Look around the room.

If we all do it, it's not weird.

Okay, so we're all gonna look around the room.

Don't stare real long at one person, and then it's fine.

But for a minute, embrace it.

Look around, take in the amount of people, especially if you're sitting kind of up front, you will have missed that the room filled up.

Okay, everyone you see, according to scripture, is more significant than you.

To produce and guard the unity of the body of Christ, it is imperative that as you look around the room, and not in a self-deprecating way, but in a gospel-oriented, Jesus-minded way, these people are more significant than me.

And they have interests that might conflict with mine, and I need to prioritize those and humble myself.

Perhaps that feels overwhelming and maybe it sounds oppressive, but consider the entire cycle.

I don't know how many people are in here this morning.

The last two weeks, the count's been about 180, just of adults in this room.

There's more out with the kids and all this, but just as adults in this room, there's been about 180.

And as you scan the room and you've seen all your brothers and sisters in Christ who are more significant than you, you have been seen by 179 other brothers and sisters who must also count you as more significant than themselves.

If we can, as a body of believers, develop a culture that says, I can look out, I don't have to look out for myself because my brothers and sisters are doing that for me.

Man, that will break the bonds of pride and selfish ambition and conceit in every one of us.

I I don't need to worry about me because 179 of my brothers are doing that.

And so I can just participate in being one of the 179 that cares and worries about them.

And we will find within that culture Christ-likeness and oneness of mentality and love.

If we can drink deeply from this truth, we can surrender our selfish insistence upon our preferences and our egos and our selfish ambitions and conceits.

We can turn our hearts and minds upon one another, counting everyone around us as more significant than ourselves.

How much clearer can I identify and address the interests and the concerns of others when I than when I am set free from my own obsessive thoughts about me.

Somebody else is going to take care of me.

And my eyes will be cleared to take care of them.

And in verse 5, in verse 5, we read this Paul says, reiterates and ties it back up have this mind among yourselves, which is yours.

We we we already possess this mind in Christ Jesus.

The humble unity that Paul suggests here, sacrificial, humble, outward-looking, God-honoring, flows from a shared mentality that scripture says here in 1 Corinthians and in other places, we already possess the mind of Christ.

Our encouragement, our comfort and love, our participation with the Spirit, the affection and the sympathy that we are given from God Himself, all secured for us because Jesus counted others as more significant than himself.

Because Jesus looked towards our interests.

Because Jesus did nothing from selfish ambition or deceit or conceit, but rather he emptied himself, he condescended himself from his throne.

He committed himself to those who respond in belief by faith through uh through faith by grace.

The ultimate expression of selfless love on the cross to the glory of God for us.

If you are not yet a believer, I pray that that compels you in humble reflection on what would compel a group of people towards sacrificial living and radical living, the the surrendering of self for the good of someone else is because Jesus did that for us.

It is the forgiveness of our sins.

It is the recognition that I am depraved and on a collision course for damnation.

And Jesus thought so little of his own interest that he came to get me to the glory of the Father.

He saved us in our disobedience.

He brought us into adoption into the family of God and the promise of redemption from sin.

And if you are in this room and have not yet responded to the gospel, I'd love to have that conversation with you, as would as would most people in this room.

For the believers, it should compel us to humble unity.

The next time you have the urge to be selfish towards another, remember that they are more significant than you.

And Jesus died for them as he died for you.

So set aside petty squabbles and arguments over preference.

Trust that your brothers and sisters are looking out for your interests because you are looking out for theirs.

And lean into the mind of Christ, humble, servant-oriented, obedient to the Father, full of love for his church.

In just a moment, I'm going to pray and we're going to observe communion.

In communion, I'm not going to step on Rob or the moment of communion, but to draw our hearts and minds into this sacrificial love, this humble love.

At the institution of the Lord's Supper, it says, on the night that he was betrayed, Jesus was betrayed.

He knew he would be betrayed.

He he just follows through on the betrayal, and Jesus breaks his body and spills his blood, anyways, and sacrificial love for us.

And we are now indwelled with the Spirit that gives us the mind of Christ that enables us and motivates us to live in the same way to the glory of God, to seeking the lost, and to the unity of the bride of Christ while we wait for his return.

What a wonderful opportunity.

What a wonderful calling.

What a beautiful picture of the gospel is a unified church.

May we guard it and protect it.

Let me pray.

Father, thank you.

Thank you for the unity that you have uh bestowed upon heartlands these years in which I have been here to observe it.

We thank you.

There has now been uh no lack of challenge or threat to division, and yet you have sustained us through the mind of Christ that we share together.

So, Father, please cultivate that in us.

May it grow and abound, that every day each of us thinks less of ourselves and more of the 179 other people who are then in turn thinking of each other, and through our humility towards one another, and to our counting others as more significant, may we bring you honor and glory.

May we proclaim to the watching worlds that you are worthy of praise, that you are worthy to be followed, and that you are worthy of setting down our preferences and squabbles and personal interests for the sake of another.

Because Jesus did that for us.

Because your love fought your love moved you towards us for the same reason.

May we turn that back out of ourselves to the world around us.

And we thank you and we love you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.